


Facing the Past

by Beryll (Rynthjan)



Series: Sir Yaden [13]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Aliens, M/M, Past Abuse, Psychics, Slavery, Violence, Yaiciz, p2, phoenix empire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-09
Updated: 2013-09-03
Packaged: 2017-12-22 21:49:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/918421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rynthjan/pseuds/Beryll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a mysterious break-in and data theft at a Yaiciz military base, the Duke has no choice but to call in a Phoenix Knight to help with the investigation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The flames licked over the meat lovingly, caressing tender parts and bringing just the right amount of sizzle to the fat. A little flare here, shifting away to cool a part that was getting too hot there. It was a dance, effortless and beautiful.

"It looks so easy when you do it." Myriam sighed next to Ivan with a mix of awe and envy.

Ivan smiled at the girl sitting next to him. "It is easy." He said.

Myriam scrunched up her face. "Yeah, right. I'm still having a hard time getting the sausage exercise right. And here you sit and barbecue a whole LOAD of meat."

They were both sitting next to the huge stone grill outside the cottage kitchen. It was early evening and the sun was low enough already that it filtered through the palm trees in brilliant orange. The grill was in almost constant use each evening, but tonight it was especially packed. Yaden had invited P2 Prime Ciel and his husband over for dinner. They hadn't really had a chance yet to catch up since Yaden and Ivan had been stranded in another galaxy for over a year. 

Ivan had offered to tend the grill while Colin and Yaden gave Ciel and his husband Sean a tour of the island to show what progress the renovating and remodelling had made since they had moved here.

"I've had a lot of practice, cooking on the Pebble." Ivan offered Myriam an explanation.

He knew that she had trained tirelessly while he and Yaden had been away. Making fire was far easier to her than controlling it. She could effortlessly produce a fireball the size of a bus and as hot as a plasma shot. She could even shoot it straight. But just getting it to fly a precise curve was a problem.

Now she was watching Ivan in the hope of picking up his tricks.

"I just don't get how you do it." Myriam complained. "You hardly concentrate on what you are doing."

She was right, of course. Which actually was the trick. "I don't have to." He tried to explain. "I used to think that my fire was something I needed to control, to make sure it did exactly what I wanted it to. But the thing is - it is MY fire, it is a part of me. I don't need to control it, I just have to be it." He chuckled. "I mean, you wouldn't worry that your own hand will slap you if you don't tightly control it, would you?"

Myriam frowned at him. "Be the fire?" She asked in a tone that told him very clearly that to her it sounded like he was sprouting some ridiculous mystic mumbo jumbo.

He shrugged. "I didn't say it would work for you." He amended. "It's a very visceral approach, I guess."

"Yeah, it sure is." Myriam grumbled. But she didn't move from his side either.

"Weren't you supposed to set the table?" he asked, rather amused by her stubbornness.

She grinned. "I bribed Dominic into doing it for me so I could watch you. Ain't going anywhere, bro."

"Really? What did you bribe him with?" Ivan asked curiously.

"I promised to help him with his math lessons." Myriam replied

Now it was Ivan's turn to frown at her. "You know, it would befit a girl as smart as you are to just help someone less fortunate and not charge them for your services."

"I would have helped him for free of course." Myriam was quick to defend herself.

"Then why is he doing your chores now while you sit here and do nothing?" Ivan pointed out, looking at her with what he hoped was brotherly reproach. If she wanted to be a Phoenix Knight one day, she couldn't start practising being the hero in every possible situation early enough.

Myriam valiantly tried to come up with an answer that would justify her lazing about, but finally she squared her shoulder with a suffering sigh and got up. "All right, I'm going." She announced regally. "But just for the record - sometimes it sucks being the good guy!"

Ivan watched her go with a chuckle. He could relate very well to the frustration of always having someone around who seemed to be doing better at your lessons. If he believed she could improve from watching him he would have let her stay, but just like he had never profited from watching Anita, he was sure that Myriam would have to develop her own style of pyrokinetics.

A little startled, he realized that he hadn't thought about Anita for a very long time. 

For all of his youth, she had been the most prominent thing on his mind. First as the rival for his father's affection he could never hope to even come close to, then as the hated bitch who had sold him into slavery and done her best to make his existence as miserable as possible. He still had no clue why his sister hated him as much as she apparently did.

But during the last year, he had been busy with much more important things than nursing a grudge against a girl that he would likely never see again. And even after their return, there had been plenty of other things on his mind.

Like worrying about how Colin would react to how close he and Yaden had become. That certainly had been a waste of time. Colin had very firmly informed him that he was quite grateful that Ivan had not only brought Yaden home to him, but that he had also kept him sane and functioning while they were gone. He had also quite crisply told Ivan that he wasn't so petty as to begrudge them their close friendship and that he didn't mind at all that this friendship included an occasional fuck. After all, Yaden was Dracon and a little variety would be good for him. Colin hadn't needed any of the offered reassurances that Yaden loved him more than anything else in the universe. He knew.

Ivan would have been envious of their love if they didn't share it so generously with him.

Now he idly wondered what his sister might be up to. He hadn't kept up with news from Yaiciz. But by all rights she should be the official heir to the ducal title now, since Duke Illan didn't have any children of his own. Not that this meant much. The old man had never made a secret out of the fact that he despised his brother like he despised the rest of all sentient life. He would probably live forever just to spite Anita.

Which she would, of course, consider a personal insult. With a little luck, she would manage to get herself executed by annoying the Duke enough.

Ivan was a little surprised how much that thought satisfied him. He had thought himself grown beyond his sister, but now that he remembered what she had done to him he felt hot anger stir in his heart once more. He wanted to see her suffer. Preferably by his own hands. He wanted her to watch how much better than her he had become. He wanted to see her face contort in rage at the fact that despite all odds he had come out on top.

The first whiff of charred meat reminded him that his fire was indeed a part of him now and that not just his anger burned hot. With an amused smile, he curbed his feelings and brought the barbecue fire back down to a perfect temperature.

His thoughts, however, didn't turn away from his sister so easily. Now that she was prominent in his mind again, he wondered whether she had kept taps on him even after he had been sent off to Bora Bora. Whether she had learned that Yaden had taken him away and made him a Phoenix Knight squire. Whether she had seen the feature the QuestLog had run on him. 

He smirked nastily to himself. Even if she had somehow stayed oblivious to his change in fortunes so far, she would definitely notice when the next Sir Yaden movie hit the theatres. Active production on 'Sir Yaden and the Windmines of Bora Bora' had been on hold while he and Yaden had been missing. After all, no one knew if they would ever return. But they hadn't been idle either and the script was complete. In the few weeks since their return, the PR team had been a flurry of activity, not just doing interviews and photo shoots about their adventures in a far away galaxy, but also getting everything ready for filming. That included casting an actor who would play Ivan. And in contrast to the one who played Yaden, this one actually looked a little like Ivan. Like a meaner, more street scarred version of him, the PR team had explained. After all, he really was much too pretty for a street ganger. Apparently, in the movie version they would skip the whole escaped Dracon pet part and make him some sort of reformed crime king. They'd probably have a fit if they ever found out about his true heritage. Then again, they were just as likely to completely disregard it even if they did know.

Anita would definitely notice when movie posters, showing Yaden and him on a backdrop of Bora Bora would be plastered all over Yaiciz. A pity he wouldn't get to see her face. He might technically still be a slave, but in every way that counted he was better than her.

Ivan heard the chatter of several voices coming up the path from the mansion. Apparently the tour of the island was over. Good timing, since the steaks and other assorted meats were nearly ready. Ivan carefully turned the sausages one last time and then started transferring the smaller skewers that were planned as appetizers from the grill to a platter. 

He turned the fire down to a gentle simmer, effortlessly able to keep control over it even from afar, as he got up and walked around the kitchen cottage to the huge table resting under the old olive tree. Myriam and Dominic were busy transferring various non-meat foods from the kitchen to the table, while Mrs. Eve presided over the kitchen, ordering them around. Darren and Shawn were seated at the table already, peacefully sipping on some sort of colourful fruit drinks, while Darren was keeping an eye on Vian and Siva who were napping on a spread blanket near him. Colin, Yaden, Ciel and his husband Sean were standing next to the table, talking and laughing.

It was still a little awing to be in the physical presence of P2 Prime to Ivan. He had met the legendary telepath in person for the first time only this afternoon. With his almost white-blonde hair and pale skin and eyes he looked kind of ethereal and despite his age of nearly sixty years, he still looked surprisingly youthful. At first, Ciel had been rather reserved, but Yaden's presence seemed to work like a balm on his spirit and he had quickly relaxed into easy banter with his fellow prime. Yaden was so familiar to Ivan that he mostly forgot how very powerful his friend really was compared to other psions. 

He suddenly wondered what his own psi ranking would be right now. He'd not been tested since he had first become Yaden's squire and since then his powers had grown immensely. Maybe he'd ask at the Phoenix Knight Tower when he was there the next day to hand in his latest homeworks and get new lessons.

Yaden noticed him when he put the platter on the table and waved him over, seamlessly including him in the conversation he was having with Ciel about psionic channelling techniques and synergy effects while Colin and Sean listened for a moment longer. Then they shared a knowing smile and moved over to the table as well where they wouldn't have to listen what to them was incomprehensible babbling.

Ivan was keenly aware how unusual this easy 'family dinner' atmosphere was. He had attended plenty of noble get-togethers, first as a guest, then as dinner entertainment. Normally they were a study in intrigue, back-stabbing and politicking. To simply share a meal among friends - that was a priceless luxury.

It was in equal parts due to Yaden's caring for his family and the strong influence of Colin who took the sacredness of his home and hearth very seriously. In Yaden's and Ivan's absence, he had carefully cultivated his connection to Ynagra, the Youh'Kai goddess he served. Or who served him. Colin wasn't entirely sure which and Ivan didn't presume to judge either.

As was to be expected, the evening grew rather late. Mrs. Eve, her son Dominic and Shawn were the first to excuse themselves after Mrs. Eve had made absolutely certain that their services were not needed anymore. Colin took a little break to tug in the twins and Myriam. But after that, they sat under the tree for a long time, enjoying the still warm evening, drinking wine and talking.

Only when Ciel and Sean finally headed home did Ivan realize that for the first time he had not just been treated and felt like a free person and equal, but also as an adult whose opinion was just as valued as those of his peers. It made him chuckle quietly as he made his way to his own little cottage. He really had grown in more ways than he could count.


	2. Chapter 2

"Hey, princess, rise and shine!"

Ivan groaned and pulled his pillow tightly over his head, trying to regain the sweet oblivion that a moment ago had still been his. Before his room was flooded with brutally glaring light and sound that made his head explode. He would have tried to plead with his assailant if his mouth didn't feel like a rat had died in it and his brain failed to produce any kind of comprehensible words.

"Ivan! Come on!" The merciless voice kept ringing in his ears and then someone started pulling on his blanket insistently.

He clumsily tried to hold on to the blanket and pillow but failed miserably. His skin prickled with a thousand needles' stings as a breeze blew in from outside.

The same hands came back to tear away his pillow and he was left blinking into the painful light, his eyes watering, trying to make sense of the fact that it was neither one of his trainers nor Anita, but a smiling face that looked very much like Yaden's, looking down at him. Why ever would Yaden be so cruel?

"Headache?" Yaden asked cheerfully.

Ivan tried for a pitiful whimper and was quite happy with the result.

"Awh." Yaden actually looked like he might show mercy. "You were drinking an awful lot of wine last night." He said.

"Go away." Ivan managed to grumble.

"Sorry, can't do." Yaden shrugged. "We have a new mission."

Ivan could have sworn he heard fate snickering at him evilly. Of course they would get a mission on the one morning where he was so hung over he just wanted to die. "Fuck." He muttered miserably.

"I'll get you something for the headache." Yaden offered, once more proving that he was a heroic being of unparalleled compassion. "You stay here and don't move." Sadly his compassion didn't extent to giving Ivan his pillow and blanket back to hide under. 

About half an hour later, Ivan was sitting upright in his bed, sipping on a mug of amazingly vile herb tea which also was amazingly efficient at clearing the lingering fuzziness in his head away. Something Colin had brewed, Ivan wagered. The painkillers that Yaden had brought him had kicked in as well and he was starting to feel like a human being again instead of a used rag. 

It was truly astounding how miserable one could feel with a proper hang over. He wasn't willing to swear on it, but he was pretty sure that even after an extended play session with one of his masters when he was a Dracon pet he hadn't felt this bad. In pain, yes, but not so overall miserable. Or maybe his memory wasn't that accurate.

"Better?" Yaden asked. He was seated on the edge of Ivan's bed, flipping through one of the mission briefing folders of the Phoenix Knight Tower.

"Getting there." Ivan answered, trying to give his friend a brave smile. "I guess I'm really not used to wine. Should stick with hard liquor and beer." He took another sip of the tea and scrunched his face up in disgust. "So where are we going?"

Yaden's answer was as effective as a bucket of ice water thrown in Ivan's face. "Yaiciz." His friend said calmly without even looking up from the folder. 

Ivan barely managed not to spit out his mouthful of tea. Now he was certain he heard fate giggling meanly. Suddenly all his confident thoughts of the previous evening seemed very far away and foolish and he felt overwhelmed by anxiety. 

Having noticed his sputtering Yaden looked up from the file and raised an eyebrow. "Problem?" he asked, just as calmly.

Maybe it would just be a mission in some remote village somewhere in the middle of nowhere on Yaiciz, Ivan tried to tell himself. Maybe there was no chance whatsoever that they would run into anybody who knew him.

"I… uh…" He swallowed hard, trying to bring his rapidly beating heart back under control. "Just worried that we might run into one of my previous owners." He tried to explain.

Yaden shrugged. "And if? You are mine now and my squire. They better behave themselves or they might get very much hurt."

True enough, but it wasn't Ivan main worry. What really scared him was that someone would recognize him and tell Yaden about his real heritage. What would his friend say if he found out that Ivan had been lying to him all this time? There was a connection between them, a trust, that surely Yaden would see violated then. There really was only one solution to that dilemma.

"Uhm… Yaden… You know we've never really talked about my past… I mean, you never asked…" he began awkwardly. 

Once more Yaden just shrugged. "I supposed you would talk about it when you're ready." He said and smiled with that absolute calm of a mountain range watching an on-coming storm with mild interest.

It helped to keep talking. "Yeah, well, I'm not ready, but I do think I should tell you before someone else does." Ivan laughed weakly and then just plunged ahead. "Before I was a Dracon pet I was… uh… my father is the Duke's brother."

He knew Yaden well enough not to be surprised by his friend's reaction which consisted of a curious tilt to his head and a slight frown. "What? How on earth did you end up a Dracon pet then?"

Sometimes his knight was just adoringly naïve. "My father sold me." Ivan answered. "He had this grand dream of a whole dynasty of powerful, ruthless pyrokinetic Dracon and I didn't fit any of the criteria."

"That is despicable!" Yaden exclaimed.

Ivan looked at him, waited for any sort of anger at having been lied to, but there was none.

"I swear if we run into that bastard and I have even half an excuse your father will suffer a very fatal accident." Yaden growled with that special level of threat he reserved for people who might harm his family.

It brought a small smile to Ivan's face and made him wonder why exactly he never had told Yaden. Of course his friend would feel nothing but protective. "It's okay, I'm really over it." He said and it was almost true. "I have a family now. I'm just sorry I didn't tell you sooner."

Yaden smiled back at him and laid one hand on his arm. "I know what it's like. At first you are not sure you can trust them, and then, when you decide that you can trust them, it seems so awkward to tell them, 'cause you'd have to admit that you lied all the time. So you kind of hope it will never will come up." He shrugged self-consciously. "I went through the same with Colin when we first met. And you don't wanna know how pissed off he was when he found out I was a Phoenix Knight."

Ivan could well imagine it. Colin was the last person in the universe he would want to anger. "Is that why you immediately told me who you were on Bora Bora?" he asked jokingly.

Yaden's grin was all the answer he needed.

"So you're not angry?" he asked, just to make sure.

"I'm angry as hell at your fucked up father." Yaden stated, once more with a growl. "Why didn't the Duke do anything to help you? He's your god damned uncle!"

Ivan shook his head. "You Pandora Dracon are so fucking sheltered it's not even funny anymore." He said. "It's completely normal that the head of the household gets to do whatever the fuck he pleases to the rest of his family. Father was just expressing his disappointment when he sold me. I guess I should count myself very lucky he didn't give me to my sister instead." He shuddered. "She is his dream come true."

Yaden wasn't perturbed in the slightest by his outburst. "So I'll add your sister to the 'arrange accident for' list as well, then." He commented nonchalantly.

It made Ivan laugh. Maybe Yaden would never make a proper imperial Dracon, but he sure was a Pandoran to the core. In the course of his studies of his squire training, he had also learned a lot about the local customs of the planets of the Empire so he would be able to behave appropriately where ever he went. Pandora was the only planet where refusing to assist a neighbour in need of aid carried a penalty of public whipping or in severe cases even execution. On a planet as malevolently dangerous as Pandora, co-operation was a must and it was rigorously enforced by the Dracon ruling it. No wonder Yaden was fiercely protective of anyone he considered his family.

Still he didn't want his friend to go on a killing spree on his behalf. If one day he got a chance to beat his sister he wanted to do it face to face. He wasn't a backstabbing bitch like Anita. He wanted to defeat her fair and square.

"What about your mother?" Yaden asked.

The question wasn't one Ivan had expected and he realized he had no real answer. It wasn't something he had ever really thought about. "I actually don't know." He said. "As far as I know, my father only married her for breeding purposes. Some low ranking Jehanni with a high psi potential which never manifested. I don't remember her. I think he packed her off to some monastery after my sister was born. Or maybe he had her killed."

"Charming." Yaden frowned thoughtfully. "Didn't you ever try to find out what happened to her?"

Ivan shook his head. "She wasn't talked about in my father's household. And later… well, let's just say as a Dracon pet or gang leader you don't really have the resources to look for anyone."

"Would you like me to make some inquiries?" Yaden asked. "I'm sure the intelligence division of the Phoenix Knight Tower can easily dig up what became of her."

The thought was rather overwhelming. "I… I'm not sure." He answered truthfully. To maybe have one family member who wasn't a megalomaniac psychopath was tempting. On the other hand, she might just as well turn out to be long dead or just as evil as his father and sister. Or maybe she would be just as disappointed in him as his father had been. "Give me a while to think about it."

Yaden nodded. "Sure. Whenever you're ready."

"So what exactly is our mission on Yaiciz?" he inelegantly changed the subject. He was grateful when Yaden let him.

"Interesting one, actually." He answered, looking back down at the file. "The Duke himself has requested aid. Apparently someone has broken into a high security military base, hacked into the data base and disappeared again without leaving any trace. The Duke's people have been investigating the matter for almost two weeks now without any results, even though they have a psion specializing on this sort of stuff on their team. When they failed to turn up anything useful, the Duke allowed a duo of Verata priests to take a look at the crime scene to verify it wasn't some sort of demonic incursion. They turned up nothing."

"Right." Ivan said with a confused frown. "If there are no traces at all how do they even know there was a break in?"

Yaden grinned. "Because they also have three dead guards and the records from the data base hacking. And they very much doubt the guards turned themselves into shish kebab."

"No traces at all?" Ivan repeated, an uneasy feeling starting to form in the pit of his stomach. There was only one threat he knew of that was especially known for being able to erase any trace of their passing and slashing guards to ribbons sounded right up their alley. It would also explain why the Duke of Yaiciz who was quite famous for not allowing anyone to interfere with anything on his planet would call in a Phoenix Knight.

"Sounds like our eight-legged friends, doesn't it?" Yaden said, his grin growing broader and meaner. "I have been itching for a rematch for a long time now. How about you?"

Ivan groaned and drained the last of the vile tea. Facing his family, his former owners and a bunch of N'Bosoti all at once? Sure, just another perfectly normal Phoenix Knight squire day.

"Fuck, yeah! Let's go!"


	3. Chapter 3

Yaiciz's capital Imerez had one of the largest spaceports of all the planets of the Empire. Located on the southern edge of the city, it was a gargantuan, sprawling mass of landing pads, warehouses and industrial sites. Since Yaiciz was the second largest industrial exporter after Guild Central, it was mostly used for cargo transport. The passenger section was comparably small, but still a maze of several levels where one could easily get lost since it didn't boast the ever present helpful signs and friendly personnel encountered at a place like Malicorn's major spaceport.

Luckily, Ivan had the best path finding equipment in existence at his disposal. Yaden led them through the maze with unerring surety on the shortest route to the main exit where they were supposed to meet the Colonel of the Duke's security forces who headed up the investigation.

Ivan had looked at the name in the file on the off chance that it might be one of his former owners, but the name Vasily Dracon didn't ring any bell. 

He had been passed around enough to have belonged to half the high ranking Dracon swimming the social circus of Imerez, even though he had been a pet for only about a year. Being the son of the Duke's brother had made him the perfect novelty item everyone wanted a piece of. Sometimes literally, when they cut off what they wanted to keep. He still vividly recalled that particular party where they had carved off slices of his skin to roast and eat them. The memory of the smell of his own meat burning suddenly made him nauseous, and he was grateful he still had nothing in his stomach but the vile tea Yaden had served him against his hangover.

Yaden didn't notice his lapse and Ivan was grateful for that, too. He didn't want Yaden to pity him or to consider sending him home. He would not allow his friend to face a potential N'Bosoti threat on his own and no matter how many nasty memories might lurk here, he would not let Yaden down. With a soundless hiss of anger Ivan forced the past back to the darker corners of his mind.

Then they reached the main exit. When they stepped outside through the double sliding doors they both gagged. Ivan had completely forgotten how heavily polluted the air on Yaiciz and especially in Imerez was. The inside of most official buildings like the spaceport terminal was heavily air conditioned. It felt like stepping into thick, stinking molasses.

"Ugg." Yaden muttered. "You actually lived here?"

"Yeah. In the slums it's even worse." Ivan smirked. "Can't believe you of all people are complaining. Isn't Pandora the planet where it rains ash and acid on the good days?"

Yaden made a retching sound. "But we don't make it so. We try very hard to get the planet to stop doing that."

Ivan shrugged. "It's the price of progress." He recited what was constantly stated on all news channels of Yaiciz whenever the rising pollution levels were brought up by anybody.

"Bullshit." Yaden stated, frowning at Ivan. "Look what progress did to Guild Central. They don't have an atmosphere of their own anymore."

Yaden's frown deepened. A look at Yaden's feet confirmed what Ivan was guessing. His friend had burrowed his toes into the concrete in front of the passenger terminal and was obviously doing what he called 'checking in with the planet'.

"He's not happy." Yaden murmured after a moment. "And I can't blame him."

Ivan scrunched his face up in mild annoyance. By now he was used to Yaden talking about planets like they were people, including putting personal pronouns on them. "Why don't you take it up with the Duke?" he suggested. "He's a much better target for your environmentalist speech than I am."

Probably Yaden would have said more on the subject, but luckily they were interrupted by a middle aged man wearing a typical Dracon black uniform with Colonel insignia on his shoulder, who briskly walked up to them. His hair was cut short in military fashion and his face was one Ivan immediately classified as 'forgettable'. In a crowd, this man wouldn't stand out at all. Perfect for military intelligence work.

"Sir Yaden!" he greeted the Phoenix Knight politely. "Welcome to Yaiciz and thank you for coming on such short notice. I am Colonel Vasily Dracon. I will be your liaison to the Duke and answer any question you may have on our investigation."

So far, any House military Yaden and Ivan had dealt with on missions had been less than welcoming. The noble Houses played their cards close to the vest when it came to military operations and they despised it when the Emperor had a reason to pry into their affairs by sending one of his Phoenix Knights. Duke Illan was especially famous for hating any sort of off-planet interference, so Ivan was a little surprised at the genuinely friendly welcome.

Then again, the Duke of Yaiciz was also known for his complete lack of patience when someone failed to deliver results in a timely fashion. The good Colonel probably had one more chance to solve this case before he was removed from his office and life in a most unpleasant way, so he had better make things work out.

"The Emperor believes in aiding all of his subjects, be they peasant or duke." Yaden answered politely with one of the many Phoenix Knight catch phrases.

The Colonel had obviously seen enough Phoenix Knight movies to recognize the phrase. He smiled slightly pained. "I have a hover glider waiting for you, sir." He said and gestured towards a decidedly official looking vehicle parked in the no-parking zone right in front of the exit with a driver in uniform waiting next to it and glaring at anyone who got too close.

Together, they walked towards the glider, Ivan hanging back a little. He wanted to get a look at the spaceport and skyline of Imerez, get reacquainted with what had once been his home. But he also wanted to check out the Colonel further. The man was oddly familiar, but Ivan couldn't quite remember him. Probably a guest to one of the many parties he had 'attended' as a pet. He was quite grateful that Yaden hadn't introduced him. Staying under the radar would allow him to observe without drawing attention to himself.

They all got into the back of the glider and moments later they were in the air, with the driver blatantly ignoring the frightened honking of other vehicles they cut by. 

"I'd like to take a look at the crime scene first." Yaden said. "It's unlikely, but you never know, maybe we'll be able to find some clue that has been overlooked so far."

Their chances to spot something were certainly better than anyone else's, since they knew what they were looking for. The complete lack of any traces had brought the Phoenix Knight Tower to the conclusion that N'Bosoti involvement was likely, but it was a conclusion they hadn't shared with the Duke's team yet. Yaden and Ivan had been picked for the mission since Yaden was the only Phoenix Knight specially trained in fighting the ancient monsters. That Colin had given them his special blessing before they left was an added bonus.

"The investigation report says that all the security surveillance didn't pick up anything unusual at all, right?" Yaden asked.

Colonel Vasily nodded. "Yes, sir. It's quite disconcerting to watch. One moment the guards are standing there whole and alive, the next they are dead and dismembered." He nervously wiped his hands on his pants, making Ivan wonder whether he really was that weak of stomach or whether it was simple nervousness of dealing with a Phoenix Knight or maybe plain fear of Duke Illan. "We also have an extra audio recording of the room where the data base must have been hacked. It was bugged for an internal investigation of two members of staff who were using the room to meet in secret. But apparently they just used the room to fuck."

Ivan couldn't help but smirk. He could well imagine how horrified those two must have been when their secret dates suddenly become the centre of this investigation. He hoped their punishment had fit the crime and not gone completely overboard.

"We'll have a look at everything you have." Yaden decided calmly.

"Of course, sir." The colonel hurried to agree.

"The report wasn't specific on what kind of data has been stolen." Yaden prompted.

Colonel Vasily grimaced as if he had suddenly bitten something into something exceedingly vile. "The thief performed a complete data-dump, sir." He admitted unhappily. "We have no way of telling what exactly he was after."

Yaden raised one curious eyebrow. "You are telling me that all of Duke Illan's military data was stored in one place?" he asked.

"No, sir." The Colonel was quick to say. "The data base contained all the current schedules, accounting, inventories. Stuff like that."

Ivan didn't have to think hard to come up with a hundred extremely unpleasant things a N'Bosoti would be able to do with that kind of intel. He and Yaden shared a worried look. The fact that they hardly had any way of locating a N'Bosoti hiding somewhere on Yaiciz wasn't exactly reassuring either.

Since the investigation so far had focused on human perpetrators, there had been extensive research into who might have an interest in the stolen data, who had known that it was there and who might have the mysterious means to get at it. The list of suspects was staggering and therefore entirely useless. That a N'Bosoti definitely had the means and an interest in the data was obvious. The question was rather how it had learned where to look for it, Ivan mused. Maybe there was some stupid human ally who was aiding the monsters. They were very apt at finding stupid, greedy humans and subverting them. It might be a possible angle, even if it was rather far fetched.

Yaden asked the Colonel a few more questions and Ivan watched and listened with a growing feeling of unease as the man kept nervously wiping his hands on his pants. At first he wondered whether maybe the Colonel was the link to the N'Bosoti, but then he realized that the gesture was unpleasantly familiar, he just couldn't quite place it. He knew that if he forced himself to consciously run through the memories of his time as a pet he would probably find the man easily enough, but he couldn't bring himself to open that well locked box.

Instead he turned his head and looked out of the glider window, his eyes sweeping over the impressive skyline of Imerez. They were passing the city centre without getting into the heavy traffic that buzzed on several levels between the piling skyscrapers. It was an achingly familiar sight. He had never been happy here on Yaiciz even in the few months he had lived in the slums, free from obligations or masters. He hadn't missed Yaiciz for even a second since Yaden had taken him away. He couldn't say why it still strangely felt like home.

The pilot swung down in a wide curve towards the large military base that dominated the hills north of the city centre. The base didn't just house a large contingent of the Duke's troops, but also served as a training facility. Yaiciz had a quite large standing military force, mainly due to the fact that they had the cash to afford it, plenty of resources that needed guarding and a paranoid Duke. 

Ivan had never been to the place, though there had been a time when he very much would have liked to move there. He had secretly hoped that his father might consider an officer's career for him when he failed to miserably as a psion. He snorted soundlessly at the entirely clueless boy he had been.

The glider landed near a flat, squad building. Like every building of the base it was build from dirt grey concrete and equally dirt grey ceramsteel. Everything on Yaiciz turned dirt grey in the heavily polluted air sooner or later.

Once more, Yaden scrunched his nose in disgust when they stepped from the air conditioned glider back into open air. The Colonel noticed and again nervously rubbed his pants, obviously unsure what exactly the dreaded Phoenix Knight was annoyed about and appropriately scared.

"Let's take a look at that crime scene. Show us where the first guard was found, please." Yaden said and managed to put that professional smile back onto his face.

Colonel Vasily nodded and lead them into the building. They passed through several security measures, including code pads, scanners, guards and an assortment of members of the investigation team. Everyone looked on edge, nervously eyeing the Phoenix Knight like they were expecting Yaden to do something horrible any moment. It didn't last, of course. The longer Yaden moved among them the more they relaxed. It was impossible to stay scared of him when he projected that trademark mountain range calm he possessed.

The bodies of the killed guards had long been removed, so the spots where they had been found didn't look any different from the rest of the dull, concrete corridors. Inside here, the walls and ceiling were coloured a lighter grey, but they still were very functional and not welcoming or pretty. The floor was covered with a worn grey green carpet. Where the bodies had been found the carpet was distinctly more green than grey - scrubbed clean of blood and years of use.

Yaden was much better at picking up the residue of psionic or unnatural activities, but Ivan still made the effort of extending his senses as well. There always was a chance that he would pick up on something that Yaden missed. The clear and precise psychic energy signature he immediately sensed startled him, but then he realized that this had to be the residue of the psychic who had scanned the scene before. He probably had some sort of active talent to use while Ivan and Yaden relied on pure feeling and instinct. Of course, in Yaden's case that was one hell of an instinct. His skills at reading energies and materials had grown to scary levels. Ivan also detected the much stranger residue of theurgic powers, probably from the Verata who had been called in. But that was all he could make out.

He turned to Colonel Vasily, who was standing at a respectful distance watching Yaden. Ivan knew that his friend would need a bit of undisturbed concentration so he walked over to the Colonel. He did not miss the nervous twitch of the man's hands when he was for the first time forced to acknowledge Ivan's presence, but he still had no idea how he might know the Colonel.

"We should let Sir Yaden work." Ivan suggested politely, gesturing for the Colonel and his hovering personnel to withdraw a bit further.

"Of course." Colonel Vasily agreed readily, shooing the curious members of his investigation team away.

"I'm sure your team has run an analysis of what the stolen data might be used for, even though there was no mention of it in our mission briefing. What were the results?" Ivan continued speaking when they had moved.

The colonel looked quite startled at being addressed again. Ivan wasn't sure whether it was because he expected a mere squire to quietly stand by until his knight called him in or whether Ivan's slave status was the reason. Maybe it just was a question he wasn't comfortable answering, trying to keep the secrets of his Duke. Ivan didn't care. 

A year ago he wouldn't have taken this initiative. He would have felt that he wasn't qualified, that he would just be treated like a slave anyway. He would have found a hundred reasons to keep his mouth shut and concentrate on incinerating things once Yaden called for it. Then he had fought battles in which he commanded alien forces no one in this empire could even imagine, he had learned to live with the trust placed in him, had learned to appear strong and confident even when he was despairing simply to keep up the morale of those who believed in him.

Facing humans again, facing the familiar uniforms and structures of the empire gnawed at the self confidence he had gained, but not enough to pull him under. So a simple Dracon Colonel would not make him cower and behave like a good little slave.

"Uh… I'm afraid that is classified…" Colonel Vasily began and then lapsed into uncomfortable silence as Ivan looked at him.

He simply looked the man in the eyes without a shred of the fear and subservience he had to be used to as Dracon noble, sure that he would get his answer. It didn't take long until Colonel Vasily broke eye contact and nervously rubbed his hands again.

"There are various possible scenarios." He answered without looking at Ivan, instead pretending he was watching Yaden, maybe telling himself that it was really the Phoenix Knight he was answering anyway. "The most worrying is that the data could be used for a concerted attack on the planet, but that seems really unlikely. It isn't like there is anyone who could attack us right now…"

Now he glanced at Ivan again as if begging for confirmation.

Ivan just grunted non-committing. N'Bosoti planning an attack on Yaiciz? That definitely was a fearsome idea. They had laid siege to Far'Gesh so it was by far not as unlikely as Ivan would have liked it to be. And Yaiciz was a good target, if the alien monsters were considering open war. After all, it was one of the top industrial planets of the empire and losing it would do serious damage. Definitely a scenario he would bring to Yaden attention as soon as possible.

As if his friend had heard that thought he looked up, his scanning apparently he completed. Yaden came over to them with a calming smile for Colonel Vasily.

"Let's move on to the spot where the second guard was found." He suggested.

The colonel nodded and led them down a corridor heading further into the building. Ivan used the opportunity to give his friend a questioning look. Yaden's nod was minute and exactly what Ivan had hoped not to see.


	4. Chapter 4

"At first our experts thought it was some kind of code, but apparently it's just background noise." Colonel Vasily explained with an apologetic tone to his voice.

After following the route that the unknown data thief had presumably taken with several stops along the way for Yaden to scan, they had finally reached the data centre. Yaden had already checked here as well and now they were listening to the recording the audio bug had taken of the time when the thief probably had been here. 

There had been a few taps that were easily recognizable as the thief activating the interface and using it. After that there was a stretch of silence and then a strange regular clicking. An annoying little rhythm that no one had been able to figure out so far. An unknown technical device that had aided the thief in hacking the data base was the Colonel's favourite explanation.

Not an unlikely theory, but there was something about the sound that made icy tendrils crawl up Ivan's spine. Something about it nagged at him, ate at him and made him nervous on a deep level he could not shake off.

"Ivan?" Yaden's soft voice focused him on the present again.

He needed a moment to realize why Yaden was looking at him with such a quizzical expression. Then he noticed that Yaden was looking at his leg, where Ivan's fingers were drumming the same rhythm they were listening to against his thigh. 

And then it hit. The cold tendrils turned into a shudder when icy realization flooded up his spine and terminated in a sharp stab of pain at the back of his neck.

That sound was so familiar because it had dominated a great many of those moments in his childhood when he failed. Each and every time there had been that impatient tapping of Anita's sharp nails on some hard surface to remind him that he was slow, useless, worthless. Always the same rhythm. This exact rhythm.

"Oh fuck." He muttered and he knew some of his realization must be obvious in his face as Yaden frowned.

How was he supposed to tell Yaden that his sister had been here, that she must be the thief they were looking for? Wouldn't that sound just a little too convenient to be believable? Like the perfect excuse to get revenge on the person who had done her utmost to ruin his life.

On the other hand - how could he not tell Yaden that it was Anita they had to find and question? That she might be in league with N'Bosoti boggled his mind. Even she was simply an evil bitch, not an ancient monstrous creature. Could she really be that stupid? To him she had always seemed smarter, stronger, better in every way than he could ever hope to be.

Only he had become so much more than he had been back then.

"Give us a moment in private, please." Yaden politely told the Colonel, who reluctantly but obediently left the room, closing the door behind him. "Right, spill." Yaden commanded with his trademark, unshakable calm.

Ivan clenched his right hand to a fist, fighting down his inner turmoil, forcing himself to take a deep breath. Yaden would figure it out. He wasn't in this alone. He had a friend he could trust no matter what.

"That clicking. That is my sister's fingernails tapping." He explained, surprised at the fact that his voice was perfectly level. "I know that sound, she always had that exact rhythm."

Of course Yaden believed him. He didn't even ask if Ivan was sure. He just rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Interesting." He said. "And I am absolutely sure there was some sort of N'Bosoti tech here. You remember that scrubbed-clean, almost antiseptic feeling we got when Saint Cornelius let us have a look at the N'Bosoti corpse parts. Exactly the same thing here under the fresher imprints. What is your darling sister up to?"

Ivan shrugged helplessly. "How the fuck should I know? Haven't seen her since I was sent off to Bora Bora and she wouldn't ever have given me even the time of day."

The impatient tapping continued and now that Ivan was knew what it was it was painfully familiar. "Can we turn that off, please?" he asked, fighting off the urge to wrap his arms around himself. He was stronger than her now, he told himself again. She wasn't the looming shadow hanging over him anymore. 

The sound still seemed to drill into his skull and he sighed with relief when Yaden switched the recording off.

"How likely is it that she is in league with them?" Yaden asked.

He didn't have to say who he meant with 'them'. The truth was that Ivan simply wasn't sure. "I really don't know." He answered hesitantly. "Maybe she is just using one of their devices or artefacts to mask her trail. She is an insane bitch, but she's also smart. I have no idea why she would work with them. I mean… maybe she is getting tired of waiting for…" Ivan caught himself just before he could say 'Uncle Illan'. "Waiting for Duke Illan to drop dead. She would be in line for the ducal title now. I really can't even guess at what her plans might be, though."

"She has a motive then." Yaden concluded. He didn't give Ivan time to get even more wrapped up in all his memories and instead headed out of the room. "Colonel Vasily, we are done here." He informed the man who was waiting outside, fidgeting nervously. "I think it's time we talked to the Duke now. He will want to know what we have discovered."

"So you have found something?" Colonel Vasily stared at Yaden with a mix of disbelieve and desperate hope. "What have you found?"

Yaden smiled at him pleasantly. "I'm afraid it is for the Duke to decide whether he wishes to keep you in the loop on the developments in this case.

If he had thrown a bucket of rotting toads at the colonel he couldn't possibly have looked more disgusted and annoyed. His voice took on a decidedly oily, malicious tone when he said. "Of course, sir. I shall let the Duke know you wish to see him, yes?"

"Please do that." Yaden answered as polite and calm as ever.

-

Being back on Yaiciz had felt strange to Ivan. Walking through the echoing corridors of the ducal palace felt outright eerie. He had spent most of his youth at his father's estate outside of Imerez. The palace had always seemed like a creepy place to him, filled with evil, dangerous people he didn't understand. 

Anita had of course made a point of spending as much time at court as possible and being seen and heard.

The Duke believed in frugality and the palace reflected it. Duke Illan ruled Yaiciz for nearly forty years now and he had changed everything in his palace to be exactly like he wanted it. Namely grey, sparse and unwelcoming.

Thankfully, Colonel Vasily obviously knew all the shortcuts that would take them to the Duke's private study quickly, instead of forcing them to go the long way that was probably designed to be as intimidating as possible.

Now that Ivan was about to come face to face with his uncle, he didn't really know what he was feeling anymore. Scared was definitely a part of it. Duke Illan was a scary man. An old-school Dracon of the generation from before the second succession war, and even then he had been known for being especially cold, brutal and efficient. As a boy, Ivan had been terrified of the old man and even now it was wise to fear a man who had held that much power for such a long time.

Duke Illan had never married, leaving everyone wondering who would inherit the title when he died. He didn't show any signs of dying, though. He had been old and evil for such a long time already that no one expected him to stop any time soon.

Ivan's father was the youngest of the Duke's siblings and the only one who had survived the typical Dracon family backstabbing. All others had met some sort of gruesome death at Duke Illan's hands. Ivan's father had escaped that fate only by keeping his head down and appearing unthreatening and inconsequential. Needless to say that he hated his elder brother with a passion and deeply resented his status.

Being only a weak pryrokinetic himself he had spent a lot of time and money on making sure his offspring would have the additional power to take over Yaiciz one day.

He had made it known to Ivan and Anita in no uncertain terms that they were to fulfil the destiny he had been denied, that they were the instruments of his revenge against his brother. Of course Anita had embraced the idea wholeheartedly.

Now that he thought about it, Ivan realized with a little jolt of surprise what a coward his father had always been, hiding behind his own children. He had always looked up to his father, had tried to be the son he wanted, had tried to please the spiteful bastard in any way possible and he had always failed. Now he wondered why he had bothered. His father was incapable of feeling affection for anyone, incapable of looking past the perceived insult of not being strong enough to kill his brother. He didn't deserve Ivan's efforts. Hell, he didn't deserve Ivan.

For a tiny moment, he wondered if maybe he would have been better off trying to gain his uncle's attention and protection, but then he silently shook his head. Duke Illan would have laughed in the face of the hopeful boy he had been. No, in retrospect he had to admit that his life had taken a turn for the better the moment Anita had sold him into slavery. Being a pet had melted him down to scrap and forged him into something so much stronger. Bora Bora had nearly broken him, but Yaden had found him and honed him into sharpest steel. His body, his mind, his soul, he was everything his father or Anita or Illan could never be. Loving, caring, protecting those weaker than him. Nothing they would understand, but he didn't need them to. Not anymore.

So what Duke Illan deserved was the respect a mere squire owed to a Duke, the respect a younger man owed a grizzled old veteran of intrigue and politics, but certainly Ivan would not fear him.

Deciding that was obviously easier than doing it, but Ivan made an effort to straighten his spine and walk with his head raised high. That Yaden was right next to him looking slightly bored, calm, curious and grim all at once definitely helped a lot.

Ivan managed to not think himself into another panic before they reached the Duke's private study.

They were waved right through by an aged female secretary who looked mousy grey, harried and deeply annoyed at their existence. Colonel Vasily ducked under her glare while Yaden smiled pleasantly.

The office they entered was large and rather empty. The grey stone of the walls, floor and ceiling was unadorned by rugs or painting, with a bank of steel filing cabinets dominating one wall. It had no windows at all, the light coming from overly bright glow panels on the ceiling. The Duke resided behind a monstrous steel desk opposite the door.

He hadn't changed at all since Ivan had last seen him. Tall, haggard, with sunken eyes, thin lips, a huge, sharp nose and a scowl edged deeply into his face he sat slightly hunched over, giving a perfect imitation of an ancient vulture, staring down at some poor dying bastard, waiting for him to finally kick the bucket.

Yaden's calm cheer seemed to aggravate him quite strongly. He added a frown to his scowl that made him look like he was ready to retch up something vile.

Ivan had no idea whether his uncle recognized him. If he did, he either didn't show it or didn't care. The Duke's whole attention was focused on the Phoenix Knight, ignoring both Ivan and Colonel Vasily.

"Your highness." Yaden greeted the Duke with a polite bow.

Duke Illan returned the greeting with a minute nod that was bordering on insult, considering Yaden was a direct representative of the Emperor. His voice was as dry and flat as he looked when he spoke. "Sir Yaden, I hear you have had more success in this investigation than any of my servants." He skipped all small talk to get to what mattered to him.

Yaden nodded calmly. "I would strongly suggest we discuss my findings without Colonel Vasily present." He said and then added with an apologetic smile at the Colonel. "No offense, Colonel, but I'm afraid this is above your security clearance."

Considering that Yaden was probably planning to reveal the possible N'Bosoti involvement to the Duke, Ivan had to agree with his friend.

Colonel Vasily didn't look happy at all, while Duke Illan's scowl remained unchanged when he dismissed the Colonel with a wave of his gnarly hand, his attention whole reserved for Yaden.

After the door closed behind the Colonel, Yaden didn't waste any more time. "Your highness, are you aware of the recent incursions of the alien species known as N'Bosoti into the Phoenix Empire?"

The question changed Duke Illan's expression from barely veiled hostility to guarded interest. "Yes." He answered simply.

"Good." Yaden nodded. "My scans of your military base tell me that N'Bosoti technology was employed to mask the identity of the thief and maybe even to obfuscate what exactly was done. Either someone got their hands on a working N'Bosoti artefact or we are dealing with one of their agents. Worst case, they are personally involved." 

His clipped explanation was obviously the perfect way to deal with Ivan's uncle. Maybe he was a bitter, old man, but he also was an extremely capable ruler. Still, Ivan was a little surprised that he didn't question Yaden's results at all.

"Do you also have a way of tracking the thief?" he asked.

"No. The traces are too old now and I have no way of scanning the whole planet." Yaden answered.

Ivan could almost see thoughts race behind the dark eyes of his uncle. "They must have been after general data of our defence grid." He said slowly. "The codes they stole have all been changed by now."

Yaden's stance shifted slightly closer to Ivan. "Actually those codes might have been used already without anyone noticing." He said slowly. "I have reason to believe that your niece is involved in this."

"Oh?" Now finally Duke Illan's attention shifted to Ivan for a moment. 

He felt frozen in that cold stare. Of course his uncle had recognized him. And of course he was now thinking that Ivan was using this as an opportunity to get back at his sister. Ivan expected him to say any number of snide things.

Instead the Duke keyed his intercom. "Mr. Thuny, locate my niece, Lady Anita." He commanded calmly.

He was answered with silence and Ivan had a moment to wonder whether something was wrong on the other end before he noticed that his uncle seemed entirely unperturbed.

Then the intercom clicked and a male voice answered, betraying just a hint of nervousness. "Your highness, I'm afraid we are unable to get a lock on her presently."

"Confirm her last known position." Duke Illan still sounded utterly calm and not surprised at all.

So he was tracking Anita? Ivan chided himself that he shouldn't be surprised, but it still felt weird to know that he had probably been tracked just as meticulously, maybe even up onto the point when he had been shipped off to Bora Bora.

Again there was a short silence before the answer came. "She was last seen entering the palace, this morning. We seem to have lost contact about half an hour afterwards."

This morning they had arrived on Yaiciz, Ivan thought.

His uncle flipped off the com. "What an interesting coincidence." He said, obviously sharing Ivan's train of thought.


	5. Chapter 5

Ivan didn't really realize how tense he had been in his uncle's presence until they had left the office, exchanging their spot with Colonel Vasily, who would get a heavily edited update on what Duke Illan and Yaden had just discussed.

Basically, the Duke had given Yaden full access to his palace to find Anita. He hadn't shown any emotion, but he had been radiating a cold fury that made Ivan's skin crawl. For a control freak like him, it had to be incredibly annoying to have missed his niece's plotting.

He didn't envy Vasily for having to face the Duke right now. As he watched the Colonel towards the Duke's office, his shoulders hunched up slightly, his hands once more nervously rubbing the seams of his pants, Ivan's memory finally clicked into place. 

He'd seen the man quite a few times just like this - only slinking into the chambers of his wife, Lady Natalya Dracon, who had owned Ivan for a while. She was the one with the money and the heritage in the marriage. Why she had picked up Vasily as her husband Ivan had no idea since she had treated the man with less affection and respect than she had granted Ivan. And less than nothing wasn't much. 

Suddenly truly feeling sorry for the Colonel, Ivan moved quickly to catch his eye and then gave him an encouraging smile and nod. It was returned with a little confusion and a healthy dose of caution. Then he entered Duke's Illan's office and the door closed behind him with an ominous thump.

Rolling his shoulders, Ivan followed Yaden. In the short time they had been in Duke Illan's office, his muscles had managed to cramp up like they were trying to crawl up his back and bunch in his neck. Certainly not helpful when he might soon be facing his sister in combat.

"Are you okay?" Yaden asked.

He didn't specify and Ivan answered just as generally. "Yeah."

They exchanged a look and Ivan read Yaden's concern for his happiness and well-being in his friend's eyes as clearly as Yaden immediately understood that Ivan wasn't ready to talk about it and longed for some action to take his mind off his past.

"So, any idea where your sister has her hidden lair?" Yaden asked.

Ivan snorted. "I think I already mentioned our interaction was limited to her laughing at me."

"Charming." Yaden commented with just a little venom. Ivan knew well enough how protective Yaden was. It warmed his heart after the icy cold of his uncle's complete lack of compassion. "We'll have to do it the old-fashioned way then. Look around, ask some questions."

"She did come here right after she must have learned of our arrival, so there must be something important to her at the palace." Ivan guessed. "No one saw her leave, so maybe she really does have some sort of secret lair here."

Yaden remained silent and when Ivan looked over at him he instantly recognized his expression. He'd seen it often enough during their long struggle against the Calarni. "You have a bad feeling about this." He stated. Yaden having a bad feeling inevitably meant things would get ugly. Yaden nodded unhappily. "Shit." Ivan muttered, rubbing his face. Things getting ugly in this context could get very ugly indeed.

-

Two hours later, Ivan felt like pulling on his hair in frustration. Instead, he limited himself to cursing under his breath in a mix of Imperial, Youh'Kai and some choice bits of Calarni that would have made small birds drop from their perch in shock.

They had followed his sister's trail through the palace with the help from security camera footage and some servants she had run into. Most of those servants had been lucky enough to dodge her and reported she had stormed past, leaving a smell of smoke in her wake, obviously furious beyond words.

Not everyone had been lucky enough to be ignored, though.

Right now, Yaden was softly talking to a young servant girl who hadn't gotten out of Anita's way quickly enough. They had found the poor thing, huddled in a corridor behind a column, severely burned. And Yaden had insisted on personally carrying her to the infirmary and making sure that she was cared for. 

Ivan wanted to tell himself that they had better things to do than take care of an insignificant servant girl, that the clock was ticking and they needed to keep focused on his sister. He was failing miserably. All he could do was anxiously stare into the room where the girl had been settled down and pray that she would be all right. It was ridiculous, but to him it felt like a personal failure that Anita had been there to hurt the girl. He was Anita's brother; it was his job to protect people from her, his responsibility.

At least the servant girl had received the best possible treatment with a Phoenix Knight looking over the shoulder of the cowed medics in the palace infirmary. Stingy as the Duke usually was, they would normally have sent her home with a few painkillers and hoped for her to die in her misery so she wouldn't bother them again. Under Yaden's stern observation they had treated her with sinfully expensive elixir and given her a proper bed in the infirmary ward that would usually be reserved for visiting dignitaries and nobles.

Yaden gently patted the girl's hands and Ivan watched with deep relief as a small, awed smile appeared on her face. Maybe her run in with Anita had been the ultimate horror, but it seemed like being rescued by a genuine Phoenix Knight more than made up for it. Yaden tugged the blanket up around her and then got up from the bed's edge to join Ivan outside in the corridor, gently closing the door behind him.

"Will she be all right?" Ivan asked.

"Mostly." Yaden answered. "She will keep some scars on her left arm. She used that to shield her face from your sister's strike. So she thinks that is an acceptable trade-off." He looked at the door with a smile. "She is a brave girl indeed. Your sister didn't attack her where we found her, she crawled there, hurt as she was. She met Anita in the second basement near where they do all the laundry."

Ivan's heartbeat quickened and he felt heat gather in his fingertips. Anita had no business being down there. "Let's go." 

With Ivan's rudimentary knowledge of the palace, they would have needed quite a while to find their way down to the utility basements, but Yaden unerring sense of direction led them down well concealed service staircases and straight to their destination.

The closer they were getting, though, the more distracted Yaden seemed. Ivan's psychic senses weren't as keen as Yaden's, but he was in tune enough with his friend to recognize that Yaden was spreading his senses wider and wider. He also knew better than to distract the other psion. Instead, he focused his own power, gathering heat to himself to defend Yaden with all senses alert for any kind of threat.

The corridors in the utility basement were brightly lit, modern and functional. They didn't at all look like a place where you would hide a secret lair.

Ivan wasn't surprised at all when Yaden suddenly stopped, his hand trailing over a wall painted light grey. His friend's eyes were half closed and Ivan knew that Yaden wasn't really seeing with them anymore, but with his psionic senses. He gently stroked down the wall and parted it like a curtain, revealing a much older, narrower corridor, dusty and dark, leading away from the one they were standing in at an angle.

There were fresh footprints in the dust covering the floor.

Still lost in his other senses, Yaden would have simply stepped through, but Ivan held him back and took point, a small flame igniting in his palm to light the way.

The scent hit him immediately. When he had last seen his sister use psi he hadn't yet been able to properly sense it and still he instantly recognized the residue of her fire. To him, the imprint left behind by the use of psi manifested as scents and vague emotions. While his own fire had the scent of burning wood and Myriam's smelled oddly of fresh cherries, this smell was clean, like a pure chemical fire, barely noticeable yet still piercing.

It urged him to call more fire into being, to wrap himself into flames so hot they would scorch the ground he walked on, to gather everything he had, to strike at something.

Instead he breathed in and out slowly, focused on the small flame in his palm, on the steady, kind burn that brought light into darkness.

He didn't even bother telling Yaden what he sensed. His friend would have a much clearer vision of Anita's passing anyway.

Apart from her footprints, there was nothing physical to indicate that she had been here or why she had come. Ivan would have walked right through what Yaden noticed with his keen feeling for all things earth.

"There." He said softly, stopping Ivan with a hand on his shoulder.

He was pointing to the ground in front of them and when Ivan increased the flame for more light he saw what Yaden had felt. There were other tracks in the dust now. Sharp and gouging the stone floor beneath the dust like someone had stabbed it with a claw. So that was what a N'Bosoti footprint looked like, Ivan thought with a shudder.

His insane sister had met with at least one of them.

"Do you sense her anywhere?" Ivan asked in a whisper.

Yaden shook his head. "It's… there is something odd about this place." He answered just as softly. "I have a clear sense of the palace and this tunnel, but further down it gets… fuzzy. Like when you are close to falling asleep and your mind just slips off what you were trying to think about." He paused for a moment. "It feels exactly like it felt when I tried to get a grip of that N'Bosoti artefact on Nabuco."

That didn't explain why Yaden looked so decidedly uncomfortable. After all he was much stronger now and quite capable of getting around all sorts of weird shielding.

"But you could get a hold of it? Now that you know it's there?" Ivan asked.

"Yes." Yaden nodded, biting his lower lip nervously. "That's not the problem. It's… it's big. Like in… huge… I'd say about double the size of the ducal palace."

Now Ivan felt icy fear pool in his stomach. "You mean the area it wards, right?" he asked, even though he could already read the answer in Yaden's face.

Yaden laughed shakily. "No, the area is actually much larger."

"Great." Ivan muttered, forcing his rising panic down with ruthless concentration. He had fought against impossible odds before and come out alive, even if barely so. And even if this time he wouldn't he'd be damned if he didn't give it his best try. "Any idea what it is?"

His friend bared his teeth in an almost feral grin, visibly fighting down his own doubts. Ivan knew that expression, that sudden glint in Yaden's eyes when he decided that something was not an unbeatable foe, but instead a challenge to be overcome. When Yaden changed from the kind, caring knight to an implacable force of nature. Yaden had just opened his mouth to answer when a low rumble from deep below made the ground tremble beneath their feet.

"Please tell me that was you." Ivan said.

Yaden's grin became a snarl. "No. It's waking up." He answered, widening his stance, arms stretched down with his hands spread, palms down.

Ivan felt his friend's mind surge downwards and immediately opened himself to Yaden, allowing both of them to pull from each other's energy. They had done this so often by now it was second nature. It also made their synergy effects much easier to accomplish.

There wasn't anything else Ivan could do to help his friend, apart from guarding his back. There had been times when such inactivity would have driven him insane, but it was another weakness he had grown out of. 

In his mind he silently ran through everything he had learned about N'Bosoti and everything he had learned from Yaden on how to bend his psi around things that could block, how to feel sideways and find those impossible openings. A feral smile, mirroring Yaden's grew on his lips as he realized that he really was looking forward to a rematch. He wanted to see the expression on an N'Bosoti's alien visage when fire that it could not block licked at it from inside.

The ground underneath them shuddered and moaned painfully and Ivan felt how Yaden channelled more and more energy into whatever it was he was doing.

"It's a spaceship!" Yaden snarled through gritted teeth. "A fucking buried spaceship and they are starting it up."


	6. Chapter 6

\--Sir, there are over a thousand individual personal signatures inside the palace! We can't possible evacuate all of them in time…--

The tone of Yaiciz Prime had changed from arrogantly challenging to a desperate whine while Ivan had in harsh terms laid out what she had to do and on whose authority. The stupid bitch had received the equivalent of several mental slaps from Ivan when she dared to question that he was really Sir Yaden's squire and then that Sir Yaden had really ordered the immediate evacuation of the ducal palace.

It had taken Ivan only a heartbeat to slip back into the clear mental command tone he had learned throughout the battles they had fought against the Calarni. Apparently Yaiciz Prime was quite used to being bossed around by Duke Illan and reacted well to direct commands.

Unfortunately Ivan also clearly sensed in her mental voice that she really didn't have the resources to evacuate everyone in time. 

Yaden was holding the N'Bosoti spaceship in a stony fist of earth wrapped around it, but Ivan saw in his strained face that he would not be able to do so for very long. The ship must have been buried down there for millennia, probably long before any humans settled the planet, hidden by that damned aura of there-is-nothing-here the N'Bosoti seemed to carry in themselves and everything they crafted. It was impossible to tell whether the ducal palace had been built right on top of it by chance or influenced by N'Bosoti agents long ago.

It would eventually break free from Yaden's grasp and rise up, destroying everything in its path. 

Hopefully that would exclude Yaden and Ivan himself since they were pretty much standing right on top of the blasted thing.

Ivan came to the conclusion that they would need help to deal with this situation. Yaden couldn't spare a thought so Ivan had to make the decisions and he grimly told himself that he could and would do so.

\--Contact Serin Prime. Master Ulysses will be able to handle that many teleports.-- He firmly told Yaiciz Prime.

\--Master Ulysses?!-- The answer came immediately. --I can't just contact the head of the Psion's Guild and ask for his help! He's… I'm…--

\--You will do as you are told!-- Ivan's angry snarl had the other psion recoil from his clearly projected emotion. --Master Ulysses will help you and he can send the bill directly to the Emperor if he feels he must. Now get me a line to Malicorn Prime. I have more things to arrange and no time to argue.--

The turmoil in Yaiciz Prime's thoughts bled through and Ivan would have felt pity for her if there hadn't been as many lives at stake. She would just have to buckle up and get on with it. It wasn't like he had ever been given much of a break in the various catastrophes and emergencies he had faced in his life. And she was about twice his age.

Then her mind tuned out and he felt the much calmer and vaster mind of Malicorn Prime who now held the connection. --Yes, Squire Ivan, how may I help you?--

Ivan had never been in contact with Prime Gabriel before even though they had been on Malicorn. He knew though that the Prime of Malicorn was considered to be the strongest telepath of the Empire after Prime Ciel of P2. Feeling his calm himself now, Ivan agreed with that assessment. Prime Ciel's mind felt like an endless ocean to Ivan. Prime Gabriel reminded him a little of Yaden, solid and unshakable as a mountain range.

\--Can you please put me in contact with Saint Cornelius?-- Ivan asked politely, dropping his command voice in the presence of a psion who clearly was much less prone to panic than Yaiciz Prime. Instead he tried to give the Prime as much information in compressed form as he possibly could. --We may have a major N'Bosoti attack on our hands on Yaiciz and need his assistance.--

\--One moment, please.--

The Prime's mental voice was replaced with a pleasant static feeling. Unlike Yaiciz Prime, none of his emotions or thoughts leaked through while his attention was elsewhere. He was much more professional.

Ivan used the short pause to check on Yaden. The ground beneath them was grumbling and shuddering, but no more than that. Yaden stood as calm as a statue, only a slight tremble in his hands and a few drops of sweat running down his temple betrayed to a casual observer that he was doing anything at all. Feeling the staggering amounts of energy Yaden was burning up Ivan knew perfectly well what a monumental feat he was witnessing. Keeping the power of a spaceship engine - a N'Bosoti spaceship engine - in check was truly staggering, even for Yaden.

\--Squire Ivan?-- Prime Gabriel's spoke in his mind again. --Saint Cornelius can currently not be reached directly, but I am having your message passed on to him. I have tagged your mental signature and will contact you again as soon as I have an update.--

\--Thank you.--

It wasn't what Ivan had hoped for, but it would have to do. Heavens only knew what kind of crisis a living saint was dealing with on a daily basis. Hopefully Saint Cornelius would be able to offer assistance. If not they would have to do it on their own. Defeat was not an option.

His eyes were drawn to the tunnel leading away into darkness, wondering where Anita had gotten to. She was somewhere down here as well. It took Ivan a moment to realize that what he was feeling was worry for her. Despite everything she had done to him - no one deserved to be slaughtered by alien monsters in a dank tunnel. Under different circumstances, with a different father to raise them she might have become a perfectly nice girl.

He looked back at Yaden and slowly shook his head. It didn't matter now, he couldn't afford to look for her. He would never abandon Yaden and leave him unprotected. Even if there really was nothing he could do right now but watch and wait. Once more he calmed his breathing, trying to put himself into a state of readiness that excluded the itchy need to act.

When he felt the tentative touch of Yaiciz Prime's mind he was ready to once more tell her what she needed to do, but it was too brief and immediately replaced by a much stronger and incredibly fast mind, one that felt like multi-coloured quicksilver to Ivan.

\--Ivan, this is Serin Prime. Tell Yaden the evacuation is complete. If there is anything else he needs tell him to let me know. I'm a little busy here myself.-- 

Then the connection was back with Yaiciz Prime, who felt completely overawed.

Master Ulysses, the head of the Psion's Guild and Prime of Serin, was the strongest teleporter of the Empire and the strongest ever recorded by any race known to mankind. Ivan had dealt plenty with the greatly talented teleporters of the Calarni, but none of them were able to not only port whole fleets over vast distances of space from one system to the other, but juggle several of such tasks at once. 

That he was on first name terms with Yaden and sounded and felt like they knew each other well was quite curious. Ivan hadn't known Yaden was hanging out with the other Prime, but apparently they were friends.

Ivan couldn't help but smirk. Primes, living saints, ancient alien monsters - he really couldn't complain that his life was too low profile. Hopefully it would last a little longer.

"Yaden?" He laid a hand on his friend's shoulder to make sure he got through Yaden's intense concentration. He waited until Yaden had nodded, signalling that he was listening. "Evac is complete."

"Good."

Yaden kept one hand extended towards the ground, but his other moved now and the walls of the tunnel moved with it, shaping themselves to a ball around them, a protective layer of stone and earth. Beneath them Ivan heard the rumbling rise to a deep growl and then the roar of engines as Yaden slowly released the ship from his grip.

"Hang on, this might get bumpy!" Yaden said.

It was weird to watch him actually relax, now that he didn't have to channel all his energy into the one task of holding the ship.

Trapped in a small sphere of stone Ivan didn't really have any clear sense of what was happening, just that they were moving, first in a controlled way and probably sideways and up. Then they violently veered to the left and he only managed to stay on his feet by bracing himself against the curving wall. The roaring and cracking of tons of earth being torn apart was deafening. They were jerked around so much Ivan silently thanked all the gods that he still had nothing but Colin vile tea in his stomach. Rollercoaster rides had never been his favourite. 

Yaden stood at the centre of their tiny sphere, calm as a rock himself, riding each new twist and turn with an almost feral grin. He was enjoying himself, fully immersed in his element, like Ivan would have enjoyed a firestorm.

If Ivan hadn't known and trusted Yaden so well it would have been damn scary not to know at all what exactly was happening to them. As it was it was only annoying and uncomfortable as fuck.

Their ride ended with a last tumble and then Yaden opened up the sphere around them, layered of stone peeling back like the petals of a flower.

The air inside had been getting a little stale, but it was outright delicious compared to the acrid stench of superheated metal, concrete and stone, mixed with smoke and dust that greeted them outside. Ivan guessed they were above ground, but he couldn't be quite sure since he couldn't see more than a yard.

At least the thick smoke muffled the sound of crashing and tearing structures somewhere ahead of them.

"Wow…" Yaden muttered, his keen sense of earth allowing him to see much further and assess the damage.

With a firm move of his arms he pulled downwards and then spread his arms wide. Air followed his command as easily as earth and a violent gust of wind came down with his gesture, flattening the smoke and dust to give them both a clear view.

"Oh shit…" Ivan whispered.

Devastation was a word that fit the scene before them. Apocalyptic was another.

Yaden had landed their sphere on the edge of the crater where moments ago the ducal palace had been. About half of the building had been completely destroyed, the rest was in the process of toppling into the crater and collapsing in on itself.

No one still inside would have survived this. Ivan silently congratulated himself on getting Master Ulysses involved.

"I hope they don't put that on our expenses bill." He said, trying at some sort of humour in the face of such wholesale destruction.

For a moment Yaden looked at him incredulously, but then he chuckled. "Judging by what I've seen of your uncle so far I bet he'll try." Then he tensed, looking up at the sky. "Uh oh… I'm not sure, but I think they are powering up weapon systems."

Ivan looked up as well and gasped when he realized the murky twilight they were standing in wasn't just due to the smoke and dust and the polluted atmosphere of Yaiciz. A giant, monstrous thing hung above them in the sky. Made from the same shiny black substance they had seen on their mission to Nabuca it seemed to shift out of focus, trying to defy any kind of scrutiny. Ivan guessed that it was about as big as the palace had been, but he really wasn't sure. 

Just looking at it made his skin crawl.

Ignoring the cold feeling in his belly he threw his own senses at the thing. He could easily pinpoint the immense energy concentration it represented. An energy that was tightly focusing right now.

"Try to absorb the blast?" he asked Yaden.

It was a manoeuvre they had used a few times to refill their energy when they had been running dangerously low in battles against the Calarni. Simply have an ally ship fire their plasma cannons at them. One of the many tricks they now had up their sleeves which they hadn't revealed to anyone in the Empire so far.

"No, we have no idea what they are firing with." Yaden answered.

"But we can't just let them fire at…" Ivan started to object, but his friend was already moving.

With a ripping gesture he tore a chunk the size of a house off the crumbling palace and hurled it up at the N'Bosoti ship, precisely targeting the point where the energy had gathered. Luckily the ship didn't have any shield up yet. The improvised giant missile hit with a crash that was muffled by distance, but definitely did a lot of damage.

Only moments later an angry buzz filled the air as shields crackled to life around the ship, in the atmosphere they were visible as a purple haze now surrounding the ship.

Ivan snarled in anger and the sound was mirrored by Yaden. They moved almost simultaneously, drawing deep breaths and lifting their hands to then pull downward. 

Tapping into the shields energy felt like a mix of touching a life wire and drinking strong liquor with a slightly foul taste to Ivan. He didn't try to hold it but let it rush right through him into the seemingly endless void of Yaden's energy reserves, which were severely depleted by the hold he had kept on the ship.

They couldn't be sure on what kind of energy source the shield was drawing, there was a good chance they wouldn't be able to burn it out. But at least it would bring Yaden up to full speed again. And that meant he would be able to tackle the ship itself, bypassing the N'Bosoti's trademark immunity to all psi the same way he had managed to get a grip on the Calarni. 

Once more energy was focusing up there, the ship getting ready for another attempt at blasting them, the city or maybe even the whole planet.

Yaden hissed in anger and then Ivan felt him draw on all that now readily available energy. For a moment there was no visible effect, but then a huge explosion ripped out of the ship right where that energy had been focusing. Whatever Yaden had bent out of shape, it clearly hadn't survived the process and hadn't been as immune as the N'Bosoti had counted on.

A much smaller ripple of energy to their left, right on the ground drew Ivan's attention away from the ship, though he still managed to keep up his tap into the ship's shields.

"Vanya." Anita hissed, her face a contorted mask of rage, as she stepped out of what looked like a purplish energy portal. "I'm so going to kill you."


	7. Chapter 7

Oddly enough, the first thing Ivan thought when he saw Anita was that growing up wasn't benefitting her. She had been a very pretty girl and she would be growing into a beautiful young woman, but the constant condescending sneer that she could not keep off her face was already leaving an impression even though she was just nineteen years old now. All her hate was starting to make her ugly.

She still favoured tight, uniform style clothing in Dracon black. But right now they were not as pristinely clean as she normally insisted on. Dust and cobwebs marred her perfection.

So she had definitely been in those tunnels. And likely escaped the destruction right on the ship that caused it.

"This is so you!" she hissed at him, stalking forward, her hands balled to hard fists and already wreathed in bright blue fire. "To ruin my triumph! You always have to ruin everything!"

Ivan wasn't entirely sure what she was talking about and the unholy light flickering in her eyes was definitely new. She looked seriously deranged. Whatever the N'Bosoti had done to her seemed to have driven her to the edge of insanity.

She was also buzzing with energy. Apparently she had put quite some time and effort into training as well. Ivan quickly disconnected the tap on the ship's shields and got ready to block or absorb whatever she was getting ready to throw at him.

"I'll fry you to a crisp!" she growled. "And then I'm going to tear that knight of yours limb from limb!"

She looked like she expected him to reply something, to at least react in some way. Maybe to cringe from her or defy her, but he simply widened his stance and waited. He felt utterly calm. He had been looking forward to and been scared of meeting her again in equal parts, but now that he actually faced her, he didn't feel much at all.

Anita was responsible for most of the misery of his childhood, for his time as a Dracon pet, for his short stay on Bora Bora. But it didn't spark the hatred he so clearly saw in her eyes directed at him. Maybe the fact that for some insane reason she seemed to blame him for whatever she felt was wrong with her life baffled him so much he couldn't come up with suitable anger.

Or maybe he had grown out of it.

With a scream of rage, her patience snapped. She threw fire at him in a concentrated blast of blue flames. Her fire was brutally hot and loaded with her clear will to kill him. It was also quite unfocused and clumsy since she couldn't channel her emotions into the attack like he would have done. Her turmoil just muddled her concentration.

Ivan easily caught the blast in his outstretched hands, harmlessly deflecting what he didn't straight out absorb.

Anita stared at him in dumbfounded silence, obviously completely shocked by the fact that he failed to be reduced to a heap of ashes.

"Did you think got the job of Phoenix Knight squire for my cute looks?" Ivan asked her with an insolent smirk.

That broke her out of her confusion and her face changed to a calm mask of hate. "I will kill you." She repeated.

A furnace of heat exploded all around him, fire focused on him in an effect he had not anticipated since no gestures gave her away. It would have seriously hurt or maybe even killed him, if he hadn't spent so much time fighting all sorts of Calarni psions. They liked to employ similar surprise tactics.

It still was a close call as he breathed in, pulling that fire into his core, making it his own. It helped a lot that Yaden chose that moment to heavily draw on his energy through the connection they still maintained and siphoned the excess right off again.

Seconds later a ripping explosion shook the ship above them. It brought a smile to Ivan's face how completely Yaden trusted him to keep his sister in check so he could continue his fight with the N'Bosoti ship. There was nothing he ever needed to fear with a friend like that in his back.

Anita, on the other hand, reacted with a shriek of rage. Unsurprisingly, her next attack was directed at Yaden, but Ivan managed to catch the fiery lances that stabbed down at his friend and bend them to his will, again deflecting and absorbing their energy.

"No! NO!" Anita screamed, obviously incapable of accepting that her failure of a brother had somehow surpassed her in skill.

"Anita, stop it!" he told her as calmly as possible. "I don't know what they have promised you, but those monsters are dangerous. You can't trust them!"

Maybe she was a cruel bitch, but even she didn't deserve whatever the N'Bosoti had in store for her.

She looked at him so incredulously it was almost funny. "Trust them? They serve me, you worthless little shit!" She laughed hysterically.

Ivan shook his head. "They are using you, Anita!" He tried to reason with her again.

"Oh Vanya," she drawled, now again full of contempt, "you can't possibly understand this. Your small mind can't comprehend my schemes. I will…"

Her impromptu villain speech was interrupted by an ear-splitting bang above them. They both looked up and found another space ship suddenly appeared out of nowhere right above them. It was much smaller than the hulking N'Bosoti vessel, shiny silver and all sleek and beautiful. 

It took Ivan only a moment to recognize it - the Bandit, one of the most famous ships of the Empire. It belonged to the Duke of Malicorn, but it was far more famous for carrying Saint Cornelius into battle. Apparently, Prime Gabriel of Malicorn had gotten Ivan's message through to the living saint.

Anita cocked her head to the side suddenly like she was listening to something Ivan couldn't hear. Then her face once more contorted in mindless rage.

"No! NOOO!" she screamed. "What have you done!?" She pointed an accusing finger at Ivan.

"They can't win against Saint Cornelius." He told her. "Anita, please, give up now. It's not too late."

His sister bared her teeth at him in a feral snarl and he felt her gather energy for another attack. Before she could launch it, though, she started shimmering in the same purplish light that had formed the portal she had appeared in.

She noticed as well.

"I will kill you, Vanya!" she screamed. "Next time I will kill!"

Then she dissolved into that shimmering light.

Moments later the giant N'Bosoti ship above them followed suit, simply disappearing, followed by the deafening sound of air rushing into the space it had vacated.

Ivan stared at the spot where his sister had stood only a moment ago. That certainly had not gone quite the way he had imagined his reunion with her.

His somewhat shell-shocked silence was interrupted by a soft chuckle from Yaden. Ivan looked over at his friend questioningly.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but did you just try to save your sister?" he asked with a mocking grin.

"Uh…" Ivan answered not very eloquently. Yaden was right, of course. And now that he said it, it sounded rather embarrassing.

"The sister who sold you into slavery as a Dracon pet and had you sent to Bora Bora?" Yaden continued.

Ivan tried to come up with some fittingly smart reply and then just shrugged helplessly.

Yaden's grin changed to fond sympathy and he slung an arm around Ivan's shoulders companionably. "Next time someone calls me a failed Dracon I will tell them how much worse you are, my friend." Yaden said and they both laughed.

Then they surveyed the destruction before them.

"My uncle will be pissed as hell." Ivan commented, feeling somewhat daunted by the prospect of facing the grim old man.

"Luckily, we can point a finger at the culprit." Yaden offered as reassurance. "I am thinking that your sister's chances of inheriting have just dropped significantly."

\---

\- Imperial Palace, the Emperor's private office, 2 days later -

"You know what this means, don't you?"

Leesha sighed softly and rubbed his aching temples. Leave it to his loving husband to rub it in. "That you were right the whole time?" he asked defeated.

He had held out hope that they would find some peaceful solution to the growing N'Bosoti problem. His husband had been telling him that it was a silly notion and that they had better get ready to strike.

"Well, yes… that too." His husband agreed. "But that is not what I meant. It means we are at war with them now."

"He's right, love" Leesha's mother chimed in. Lady Lilith was sitting on the edge of his desk, looking as perfectly beautiful and composed as always. If anything, she actually looked pleased.

"The two of you sound like you are actually happy about this." Leesha growled.

His mother and husband shared a look. 

"It's a good thing that this waiting game ends now." His husband said gently. "Leesha, you know that we are well prepared for this."

"Doesn't it worry you even a bit that we are going to fight an elder race? That we might be wiped out by them?" Leesha asked slightly exasperated.

"Worrying doesn't give satisfactory results." His mother admonished. "Only clear thinking and decisive acting does."

"Yes, mother." Leesha conceded dutifully. 

He sighed once more and then surveyed the plans spread out on his desk. "Let's get to it then, shall we?"


End file.
